Preliminary Comparison of DOW and In Situ Wind Measurements in Hurricane Rita

A Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) Doppler On Wheels (DOW) mobile radar was deployed to Port Arthur near the point of landfall of Hurricane Rita (2005). High temporal and spatial resolution data were collected for several hours as the eyewall and eye came ashore. The DOW was deployed 8 km downstream of two Florida Coastal Meteorology Program (FCMP) instrumented towers, also in Port Arthur, which collected wind data at 10 m agl at better than 1 Hz time resolution. The DOW conducted scans over the towers at 1.2 deg elevation (~150 m agl) every 12 sec resulting in an over 2400 point time series of Doppler winds which could be compared to tower data.

Comparisons of the DOW and tower data will be presented. A couple preliminary comparison plots are shown below, illustrating the long term correspondence of winds and the correspondence of short period gusts.

Figures can be found at: http://www.cswr.org/rita/rita-preliminary-plots-2005-1013.pdf